Product & Content Designer
My Role
UX Writer, Content Designer
Team
3 Product Designers and 1 Content Designer
Basic Process
User research > Plan > Design/Copy > Prototype > Test
Timeline
2 weeks
Tools
Figma, Google docs
RESEARCH
We created a survey to understand people’s relationship with sounds and got about 68 responses. Most of the responses came from students within the ages of 17-25 years old and the results of the survey indicated that the majority of respondents listened to sounds online and desired an easier way to search for them.
OBJECTIVES
What we wanted to learn:
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Do college students listen to sounds to improve their state of mind?
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Would college students think listening to sounds through a mobile app would be easier than through online alternatives?
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Does listening to sounds increase college students’ productivity?
APPROACH
I started by doing competitive analysis on already existing products that helped relieve stress and improve focus, and conducted research by creating surveys to help me understand the target audience. Based on this research, I created a persona which would be used throughout the design process to inform our decisions. Lastly, the product designers and I completed user testing which led to iterations that improved the user experience.
THE CHALLENGE
I worked in a team of 4 to complete a class project aimed at helping college students manage stress and focus on tasks. To solve this problem, we created a mobile application called Mood Sounds which allows users listen to different sounds based on how they feel. It leaves users in a better state of mind for everyday tasks like studying, yoga, getting a goodnight sleep, and many more.
USER PERSONA
Many college Students don't have the proper tools to relieve stress and anxiety due to their inability to afford mental health services, and the limited number of mobile alternatives. This causes them to feel overwhelmed and less inclined to perform both academic and everyday tasks.
Meet Bella, a college student. She is studying for a test, but is having a hard time relieving her anxiety and trying to concentrate. She opens the Mood Sounds app, identifies her mood and desired activity, and then begins to enjoy one of the recommended sounds. She now feels more focused and can save the sound on a playlist, to utilize on her next study session.
VOICE
While thinking about this product, I decided that I didn't want its voice to sound too formal since our audience was primarily college students. I came up with three guiding principles for the voice which were casual, clear and human and tested the tone and language with college students to iterate and make improvements.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
The objective was to establish the IA and then improve it in response to input from user testing.
Testing And Iteration
To test our product, we allowed 12 college students to navigate through the application. This helped me to identify problem areas and use their feedback to make improvements to the content.
Before
The words “different” and "frequencies" made users assume the app was designed to only play multiple types frequencies
After
Less wordy and ambiguous
This was too robotic, and the word “today” implied that users would open the app once per day
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The lack of a clear call to action made users attempt to select two options instead of one
More human
Clear CTA
OUTCOME
Not only did we earn an A grade for Mood Sounds, it was also ranked one of the top 3 applications submitted and continues to be used as a reference point for students in other classes.
